


You Belong to Me

by madscientist1313



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Happy Halloween, ghost story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:49:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27305848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madscientist1313/pseuds/madscientist1313
Summary: An old fashioned ghost story, just in time for Halloween -- Sam is haunted by something that occurred on a recent mission... and thatsomethinghas followed him home.
Kudos: 6





	You Belong to Me

**Author's Note:**

> Written for @Wonderlandmind4's Fall Winter Writing challenge with the prompt, “Goblins and ghosts and ghouls, oh my!”

Every night, now, is the same.

Every night, the woman comes for him, entering his room like an ethereal dream. Climbing atop him like an old fashioned nightmare.

Every night, Sam feels her sit atop his chest, gripping his shoulders with icy fingers. Squeezing his ribs, his lungs, between her naked, knobby knees.

Every night, she leans in close and drips foul-tasting lake water into his wide open mouth as he releases yet another silent scream into the dark, empty room.

Every night, he breathes her in – the cold, cold water that she seems to be comprised of – choking and sputtering and retching. Until he drowns all over again.

000

It was supposed to be an easy mission. It _was_ an easy mission. Little more than lookout duty on his part.

He and Bucky were tasked with _sitting_ , it seemed, the two of them made to hunker down and hold steady at the tree line, to keep watch while Steve and Natasha infiltrated the tiny – likely long ago abandoned – building nestled deep within the Siberian wilderness.

“This place is _hell_.” The words crackle in his mind, the sound of his own voice – pitching into pure petulance – echoing eternally as the memory plays out in yet another restless dream. He shakes his head idly to-and-fro before craning his neck a bit and twisting, the slight _crack-crack-pop_ resounding in the air.

Bucky snorts in reply, his eyes still – always – suspiciously narrowed, trained ahead, his advanced vision allowing him to see the cracked open door where their teammates had entered without the need of his rifle’s scope. “It’s Siberia,” he drones. “What did you expect?”

“Not this.” No, not this, he thinks, breathing out a sigh, absolute boredom stretching out along the deep exhale as his eyes tick off past the outpost.

This is nothing like what he had expected Siberia to be. He’d pictured a barren wasteland. A snow-covered desert. A place – dead and dark and devoid – that could be of no use beyond breaking men and building monsters.

This place is _beautiful_. Stunning. Lush and full and picturesque, with swaths of deep, rich color popping through the low-hanging clouds. Every shade of green blanketing the ground, swirling with earthen browns in the distance as the forest gave way to the far-off mountain range. Snow-covered peaks, buried deep in the background, showing a hint of the frozen scape that he _had_ expected to see as they traveled from the other end of the world.

Off to the east, just at the edge of the expansive clearing… that’s where a small lake lay, the water reflecting the soft gray hues of the overcast sky, small slivers of silver shining from between the thick branches of peculiar looking spruces and pines.

No, it isn’t the place he expected to see when they first climbed off the jet and began the four mile trek to the tiny outpost. Nor is it the kind of place that warrants being called _hell_. At first glance, it seems more like an expansive – albeit _cold_ – paradise. And yet, Sam can’t help but feel an eerie tingling up his spine, a physical sensation that tells him there is something very _not right_ about this little part of Siberia.

It’s the noise. Yes, that’s it. It’s the noise – or lack thereof – that has his shoulders set high and his chest tight in a sort of nervous anticipation. This place… it _sounds_ like something out of a nightmare _._

They’d been sitting in the same spot for what feels like hours, crouched at the edge of the forest, huddled in amongst the thick, spiky bushes and sap-covered trees. They’ve been sitting in their own self-induced silence – because Barnes is worse at small talk than Romanov – for a veritable eternity. And nothing, not a single bird nor squirrel nor whatever the hell kinds of animals live up here, had made a sound.

There is _nothing_. Not even the soft rustle of the trees in the wind. There is no wind. There is only stillness. And utter, deafening silence.

His ears ring and whomp from the emptiness filling them, the richly _absent_ noise that burrows so deep it manages to infiltrate his brain with a cold, gray stillness to match that of the far-off lake.

And then… the silence is broken. Shattered by a deafening creak from the heavy, metal door on that small building that sits abandoned in the middle of the clearing. Blown apart by the sudden pounding in Sam’s chest, forcing a thunderous tide of blood to resound in his ears. Destroyed entirely by Bucky’s single, barely audible word, hissed out through tightly clenched teeth as he jumps up and shoulders his rifle.

“Shit.”

000

“It’s perfectly normal… this sort of reaction,” the doctor tells him with a shrug as she scurries to the other side of the small exam room. “You went through a traumatic experience. You very nearly died.”

“Yeah,” Sam replies with a bit of a scoff. “But I’ve _very nearly died_ before,” he counters, challenging brow raised high.

She lets out a long-winded, exhausted-sounding sigh, the expression riding on her far-too-young face – what is Stark’s deal with hiring child geniuses, anyway? – showing more than a hint of annoyance. “It’s extremely common for the brain to either alter or block out entirely certain memories when a traumatic event occurs. And to have… disturbing nightmares. Trauma does funny things – ”

“Please stop saying _trauma_ ,” he laments thickly, cutting her off mid-thought. “Look, not to sound like a dick, doc, but I know what trauma is. Hell, I’ve been a _trauma counselor_. And this? It’s not that.”

She glares at him from over the top of her thick-rim glasses. “Alright. Do you see this _woman_ when you’re _not_ dreaming?” she asks, eyes narrowed in interest, or perhaps suspicion. “Are you having hallucinations?”

His shoulders drop, a low groan pulling from his chest amid an annoyed, “No.”

“Because you were without oxygen for a considerable period of time,” she goes on, eyes flicking to the tablet in her hand as she begins a frantic scroll through his chart. “I was going to sign off on you today, but if you’re experiencing symptoms related to possible brain damage, to some sort of mental deficit…”

“Mental deficit?” he repeats incredulously. “No, I’m not… it’s not…” He throws his hands dramatically up into the air and hops down off the exam table. “You know what? Forget it. Just… forget it. I’ve been _traumatized_. This is an _extremely common_ reaction. No brain damage here,” he tells her, reaching up and rapping at his skull with his knuckles. “Right as rain.”

She eyes him warily for a long moment before clicking out of his chart and offering a painfully forced smile. “In that case, you are cleared for duty, sir.”

Cleared for duty. It should be a good thing. It _is_ a good thing, he tells himself as he heads for the conference room on the ground floor. Their mission in Siberia had been effectively cut short by his little plunge into that icy lake, the team racing to his rescue in lieu of clearing out the bunker and following up on any potential leads.

The place had been abandoned, or so Steve had told him once he woke a day later, laid up in medical. It looked to be little more than storage, a thick layer of dust sitting atop mountains of boxes, piles of papers, and stacks of old hard drives. He and Natasha had been slowly making their way through the plethora of _crap_ , attempting to discern what held the most intel, what items were important enough to be lugged the four miles back to the jet, when they heard the heavy metal door to the building slam open.

Steve couldn’t say where the woman had come from. Natasha either. They had seen a row of cells that extended down a long, musty corridor. Had walked the hall and shone their flashlights into each and every one. But there was no one there, not that they had seen.

And while they had heard the door creak open up above them, signaling the woman’s escape, and while both Sam and Bucky had seen her flee, race across the field and into the woods. Once she hit the water and plummeted into that deep, cold lake, it was as though she had never really been there at all.

“You good to go?” tears Sam’s attention away from his wandering mind, deep brown eyes shooting across the room and finding a rather concerned looking Steve staring him down.

“Uh,” he sputters, glancing back at the open door. He had been so lost in own world that it hadn’t even realized he’d made it downstairs and entered the conference room where the prep work for the return mission was taking place. “Yeah,” he says with a slow nod. “All clear.”

Steve gives him a quick, stilted nod of his own, worry still etched across his face. “Good.”

000

She’s here again tonight.

He feels her approach, splitting through the soft quiet of his bedroom with a foreboding silence that echoes deep in his ears.

He sees her loom above him, a pitch black shadow that swallows even the moonlight-tinged darkness around him.

He feels his lungs begin to burn and constrict as she coils herself around his chest, squeezing him tight as she settles in.

He watches – paralyzed, eyes wide and unblinking – as she leans in close and whispers something into his ear. Into the dead of night. Something soft yet cutting, familiar yet indecipherable.

He stiffens even further as she cages him in, dark wet hair spilling down either side of a face he can’t quite make out, _drip-drip-drip_ ping into his once-again gaping mouth.

And – again – he drowns.

Sam wakes with a start, a choking, _burning_ sensation filling his chest and tearing up and out of his throat in a gasping shout. He bolts upright, wide eyes desperately searching the dark for… something. For the dark haired girl whose silhouette is scorched onto the backs of his lids. For a familiar shadow… of anything or anyone that might calm him, ground him, make him believe he’s here. Safe at home.

For nothing at all. Because that’s what this is after all. Right? Nothing but a dream.

A long, languid sigh spills out of him as he spins and throws his legs over the edge of the bed, sitting heavily as his breaths begin to level. He ducks his head, his bleary eyes blinking to focus on the hardwood floor beneath his feet.

Nothing. There’s nothing. It’s nothing. Until…

_Drip_. He hears it first, a drop of water plopping, tiny but close, a drip onto the floor beside him.

_Drip_. He feels the next, splatting on his naked toe. The smell of sulfur – of rotten eggs and putrid lakes, decaying dreams and literal brimstone – suddenly pervades the room.

_Drip_. This time landing on the very center of his foot.

He shifts to face up, head righting itself achingly slowly, hesitation flooding his veins. His lids roll shut, pinch tightly together, as his face straightens, head slowly shaking back and forth in a silent plea. 

_Drip_. A tiny, cold burst of water hits the tip of his nose. And his eyes snap open, taking in nothing but the pure, eternal dark.

000

Everything feels like a dream these days. Even this. Even sweating in the Avengers’ decked-out gym, Bucky by his side cringing like a mad man as he finishes his reps. There’s something odd and… murky about the world as it goes on around him now. Like everything is graying at the edges, the picture in front of him curling and singeing and smoldering into black even as he sits – paralyzed – at its center.

Sam shakes his head swiftly to fling away the eerie thoughts. To bring things back into focus.

“A roo-what-a?” he asks, voice thick and groggy, as he replies to Bucky’s just uttered words. He swipes at his red-rimmed eyes yet again, the thick grittiness left from too little sleep – from too much effort at holding them open – never fading, no matter how much he rubs.

Bucky racks the weights – just your standard 120-lb dumbbells, nothing too heavy for an early morning warmup – and grabs his half-empty bottle of water. “Rusalka,” he repeats before easily chugging the rest of his drink.

Sam rolls his eyes. The bastard just finished five drop sets, and he admitted to being late to the gym because he _accidentally_ ran an extra five miles… and he’s barely even broken a sweat. “You do realize that doesn’t clear up a damn thing,” he issues out in a painfully annoyed tenor. “Right?”

He crumples the plastic bottle in his metal fist and chucks it into the recycling bin in the corner. “Look it up,” he says, his own voice taking on an irritated tone to match.

“You know, Barnes, you’re a real dick.”

Bucky glares at him for a moment, that oh-so-familiar dangerous stare that he opts for too damn often. Over the past several months – as Steve saw fit to pair him up with this wreck of a man for too damn many missions – Sam had grown rather accustomed to the stern, narrow-eyed scowl. But he was also starting to get used to the look that followed, the relaxed jaw and raised brow that seemed to signal a shift from the protective cover of the Winter Soldier to the knowing – at times even trusting – fellow Avenger. “I stood here and listened to you bitch about some nightmare _witch_ , didn’t I? Seems like I’m a fucking fantastic friend.”

Sam rolls his eyes again, a deep, burning ache pulsating just behind them as he does so. “Look… I know it sounds crazy. It is crazy… but…”

Bucky nods slowly, his lips pursed and brows raised as if in absolute agreement.

“ _But_ ,” he goes on, only to lose the thread entirely. The truth is, there’s no possible way that he can say anything, explain anything, that won’t make him sound like an absolute psycho. “I just… you were there, man,” he tries, voice fading off into a defeated sigh. “I don’t… I don’t really remember what happened. Not all of it. But…”

“A woman ran out of the compound,” he begins gently, his voice oddly deep and light. Patient. “Looked like a prisoner or a… an experiment of theirs. She took off into the woods, fell in the lake. You went in after her.” He relays what happened – for the umpteenth time – in a calm, matter-of-fact way. He is, after all, no stranger to gaps in memory. Nor, frankly, to traumatic nightmares. “I pulled you out,” he says, dropping his strong, flesh hand to Sam’s shoulder and giving a quick, firm squeeze. “Never found her.”

Bucky’s eyes tick up to look past him, over his shoulder. He gives a slight nod just as the heavy gym door clanks shut. “What’s happening, _gruesome twosome_?” Clint calls out as he strides over. “Cap got you two working out together now too?” he asks with a chuckle. “Feels like he’s trying to set up his best friends. Better be careful, I think that guy’s a step away from parent trapping you two.”

Sam blows an exhausted sigh out through his nose as Bucky pivots away and says simply, “I don’t know what that means.”

“Haley Mills, Sarge,” he responds with a crooked smirk as he steps up to the rack and grabs a pair of twenties. “Don’t bother with the Lindsay Lohan crap.”

“Okay,” he drawls out, gaze setting back on Sam, his clear blue eyes shining with a conspiratorial glimmer. “Doesn’t clear up a damn thing.”

Clint drops down to the bench to start some curls, watching his biceps carefully as he asks, no strain at all to his voice, “What are you two BFFs gossiping about down here all alone?”

“Ah,” Bucky breathes out with a soft cadence. “Sam’s seeing ghosts.”

“First of all,” Sam breaks in, single pointed finger raised high. “I hate you. And secondly, one ghost. Just the one. And you _named_ her.”

“I didn’t _name_ her,” he bemoans rather dramatically. “I said it sounds like a rusalka.”

“Which is…” Clint intones, inquiring brow raised high.

Bucky lets out a harsh sigh, his shoulders drooping as an annoyed expression tugs at his face. “It’s just this bullshit legend.” His countenance drops, eyes ticking away and darkening for a fraction of a moment as he states, “Couple of guards I remember used to talk about it. Superstitious fucks.” Another sigh, and he returns his typically steely gaze ahead. “It’s like the lady of the lake. A _ghost_ ,” he finishes with an exasperated cadence.

“Ooooh,” Clint mocks, glancing up at the pair and offering a playful wink. “Goblins and ghosts and ghouls, oh my!”

“It’s not funny,” Sam spits out, his normally good-natured attitude splitting at the seams and releasing a rather embittered version of himself… one that catches Clint off guard, causing him to stop his curls and gently set the weights down beside him.

“This about the mission last week?” he asks, his own lighthearted voice taking on a more serious edge. He turns to Bucky. “Lady of the lake? Like the lady you two saw drown in that lake?”

He nods, head bobbing low to hide the slight blush – a ruddy betrayer of shame – as he internally chides himself for mocking his friend’s pain. “I used to have to dreams too,” he says softly, voice low and tender. “Still do.” He looks up at Sam, nervously chews at the corner of his mouth before releasing a sigh and steeling himself once again. “You kill someone, or just… can’t save someone… yeah, that shit haunts you.”

“I _know_ that, man,” Sam counters, a frustrated quality to his tone, to his stance. His eyes flit between Bucky and Clint, each man giving him his full attention, rapt and stoic and… invested. “I’ve had dreams too. Nightmares. Of missions gone wrong and people lost and…” His head begins a slow, certain shake, his gaze piercing and true as he states, “This isn’t that. I don’t know what it is. But it isn’t _that_.”

000

It hits him again, the moment his eyes finally fall shut, every battle against sleep seeming to end just the same way. The smell of the water. The stench of rotten eggs sitting high in his sinuses, tingeing the air he breathes now, here in his quiet, dark room.

“Shit,” breaks through the peculiar din, and Sam’s distant gaze snaps towards the building at the center of the clearing. To the door, no longer merely ajar, but flung wide open. “Shit,” Bucky repeats, the curse heavily spat as he rises and shoulders his rifle before launching forward through the brush.

It’s a woman – a _girl_ – stumbling over a jumble of too-long legs before quickly righting herself, throwing a glance over her shoulder at the still-swinging door, and bolting across the clearing. Sam pops up the moment he sees her, takes off running just a fraction of a second before Bucky does, and chases after.

She’s heading for the lake, her bare feet plodding so delicately atop the grass that no sound comes from them, her escape seeming just as silent as the world surrounding them. It’s just breaths. His own, fast and hard as the air beats in and out of his lungs. Bucky’s easy and controlled, even as he runs in pace behind. The woman’s, stilted and frantic as she speeds across the land, slipping into the forest, making a beeline for the water.

She runs. On broken, blistered soles. Over frost-bitten grass and through sharp, stinging nettles. Branches slapping, cracking, whipping thick, red lines into the exposed flesh on her arms and legs. She runs. Away from the others. Away from everyone. Away from everything. She runs. Towards salvation. Towards home. Towards a wide, placid expanse.

Bucky pulls ahead, fueled by that damn super soldier serum that pumps endlessly through his veins. He flies into the forest after her, splitting the trees with his wide frame, plowing forward as his boots crunch violently on the fallen pinecones underfoot. And Sam follows. Just as he always seems to do. He chases after the super soldier, thoughts of Steve – _I do what he does, just slower_ – flitting anxiously through his mind.

Sharp cracks and snaps echo through the air, breaking through the silence with small pops more startling than giant claps of thunder. Sam feels his chest constrict, his heart jumping at the sounds before resuming it’s wild beat against his ribcage.

And then… the heavy thump of boots on the ground stops, disappears altogether the moment he enters the forest. The sounds of crunching pine needles and snapping branches gone as well, leaving only the heavy pant of his own breaths and the fast-paced thrumming of his own heart echoing in his ears. Silence. Again.

Yes, this is what he remembers most.

The girl, pale and cold and desperate, running past him, slicing through the still air without making a sound. He turns, anchors his foot into the lush earth and swivels towards the flash of dark hair. The quick glimmer of a white dress. Or… no, it isn’t a dress, is it? No. It’s more like a hospital gown. No pants, no shoes. No jacket to cover her shivering body.

“Sam!” The shout pulls his attention and his heavy boots slip as he tries to turn, looking for the man he followed, the soldier who led him into these cold, dark woods. “Sam!” he hears again, finally lighting onto Bucky’s form, a quick, blinding flicker shooting off the bright metal arm. He’s far behind, stilled in the brush, his normally stoic face awash with something akin to fear. To terror.

Sam’s boots skid and slip on the muddy, moss-covered shore, eyes blowing wide as he looks down and sees the silver mirror of the lake, so close. In his periphery dances a swath of long, dark hair. He spins to see, spins and sputters, catches just a glimpse of her pale form just as it breaks through the water, the glassy surface splitting apart into violent ripples. A splash from a distance. The crunch of boots from behind. But the only thing he hears is his own short gasp as his feet slip out from under him.

And then… nothing. There is nothing to see but blackness.

He shakes himself awake, blinking almost maniacally, turning wide eyes towards the window, towards the sliver of moonlight peeking into his room. No. It hadn’t been black. It was _green_. The whole world was green. And gray. The water was pure silver and gray. Until he broke through that perfect, mirrored surface.

_Sam!_ A shout, one carrying Bucky’s desperate tenor, resounds in a far-off corner of the room. How many times had he shouted his name? Once? Twice? Three times, as he raced frantically for him?

He can’t remember. All he can remember is the quiet that followed. And the cold. And the placid gray water turning murky and _black_ the further he sank.

His eyes slowly close once more, lids too heavy to remain at attention. Body too heavy to keep from drifting off, from stilling and setting and sinking into the mattress. _Sinking_. He’s sinking. Down, down, down. Further into the cold dark. He feels a part of him twitch – his leg perhaps? maybe just a foot? – before he goes completely still. Paralyzed. Sunk.

A flash of a memory tears through the darkness, a snippet of something that he’s yet to recall with his waking mind. _Traumatic experience_ , an easy explanation for why his dreams are so fucked, his memories so jumbled. So murky and black. But… _This isn’t that. I don’t know what it is. But it isn’t_ that _._

He remembers the silence. The stillness. A woman running.

He remembers the snapping and stomping and shout of a friend.

He remembers the cold, cold dark enveloping him as he sank. As… as she tugged him down. Long, dark hair. A white gown. Ghostly pale skin… gooseflesh all along her naked arms. She pulled him down. Down, down, down.

His eyes snap open once again, lungs clenching tightly as they try to pull in air. But they can’t. His chest burns, like the blister of ice water filling within. It aches, likes a thousand pounds rests atop him. Nothing works… not his lungs, nor arms, nor legs. Nothing works except his eyes. They tick up, widening in a frantic search, desperately cutting through the dark.

Something moves above him, the tiniest glint, a reflection of moonlight shining off of… long, dark hair. Wet, the thick curtain hangs heavily, concealing much of her face as it drips. _Drip, drip, drip._ Icy droplets ping against his skin, plopping to his cheek in scalding shards.

She’s sitting atop his chest, squatting, perched like a stony gargoyle atop its church. For the first time, he’s able to make out her face, staunchly white, oddly luminescent. Small features, a tiny nose, thin bowed lips. They part, just enough for a bitterly cold breath to blow past. And her eyes… her eyes are empty, pale, pale blue. No. Silver. And gray. And murky, like the lake water. She stares at him with those cold, dead eyes, cocking her head as his breathing and pulse grow more erratic.

Her lips move, the smallest echo drifting to him. Unintelligible words that he’s heard a dozen times before. A hundred? A thousand? She jerks suddenly off to the side, off of his chest, faltering for just a blink of moment before shattering into a million icy shards that melt into a cool puddle beside him.

Her soft voice continues to echo through the room. Through his mind. Through his soul.

Ты принадлежишь мне. Вы принадлежите _нам_.*

*You belong to me. You belong to _us_.


End file.
